Pray for Rio Branco


Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together since 1971. In addition to pastoring First Baptist of Cruzeiro do Sul, Mike builds his own boats and frequently travels up and down rivers to share the Gospel with those who have never heard.

February 12, 2020

Dear Brethren,

Grace and peace from us in fairly peaceful Cruzeiro do Sul. It looks like the rainy season is finally going to get under way. Most of the rain is falling in southern Brasil though and we are still waiting. I had to cancel a river trip in January because the bottom dropped out of the river. I was able to send our bricklayer by canoe to the last congregation at the mountains on the Moa River to continue the work on their new building. In fact, it worked out that because the roads dried up, he was also able to spend a few days at Gama, Amazonas (opposite direction by almost a hundred miles) to finish the parsonage for missionary Anísio.

Bev and I made a mission trip to the state capital Rio Branco. Let me tell you what that is all about. Almost 30 years ago we started a church in Rio Branco. Only after much prayer and reluctance on my part that I agreed to start a new church there. At the time there was one rather solid Brazilian convention church and a sprinkling of Regular Baptist churches. Most of them were dying. At the same time, we had dozens of folks who had been saved here in Cruzeiro and had moved to Rio Branco and were begging for a church with solid doctrine and evangelistic spirit. Three times a group of them bought their own tickets and came to Cruzeiro do Sul to beg me to start a church. My reluctance was because ethically I did not want to infringe on a region that already had churches. Nevertheless, I finally acquiesced. We had a good pastor from Brother John Hatcher’s work in Manaus who was in Rio Branco at the time, but was poised to return to Manaus. We started meeting in a school in a neighborhood that had no church of any kind. I visited them once a month. We eventually found property and I helped them build their first building. They grew quickly and soon we organized the church.

Over the years the convention church finally became charismatic. It is now the largest “evangelical” church in the state. They dragged 25 of the 27 convention churches in the states into the prosperity gospel movement. Many of the Regular Baptist churches died. The 2 or 3 that survived are just hanging on. They are extremely legalistic and reaching no one. Our church, Igreja Batista Memorial, grew steadily. They got up over 200 members. They built a bigger building and were doing great, then the pastor left. He put in his place a guy who is a hypercalvinist (without consulting our church). The new guy is a good teacher, but very arrogant. Recently he has been calling himself Rabbi Lopes! The church quit preaching the gospel a few years ago. We have reached out to them in several ways, but there is no longer any interest in reaching the lost. The church is dying. They now have 50 or fewer people in their Sunday services. I know this because one of our members who has stayed faithful puts videos on Facebook of the Sunday services. I have seen 3 of these videos and can count the number of folks present.

For about 3 years now I have been struggling in prayer about what to do. Recently unchurched people from Rio Branco have been begging me to start another church. Bev and I went to meet informally with a few of these folks a couple of weeks ago. Looks like we are going to have to bite the bullet and do what has to be done.

First Baptist Church of Cruzeiro do Sul continues to take the gospel to the most remote places. During 2019 we sent out two more missionary families. We will continue to do this until we have planted churches in all the cities of our state, neighboring states and countries. BUT, Rio Branco has half the population of our state. There are almost 500,000 people concentrated in one spot and the gospel has been abandoned by the local churches.

Thanks for staying with me through this long read. I need you to pray with us about this challenge. Frankly I don’t know exactly how to proceed, but we cannot wait any longer. So please help me with your prayers.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online


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6 Professions of Faith through Projeto IDE, Visiting Gama, Serra do Moa, São Domingos


Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together since 1971. In addition to pastoring First Baptist of Cruzeiro do Sul, Mike builds his own boats and frequently travels up and down rivers to share the Gospel with those who have never heard.

October 10, 2019

Dear Brethren,

We have had a great summer. The weather has been crazy though. Several unseasonable cold fronts and lots of rain. With all the rain I thought I would be on the rivers by now, but the Juruá is super low. The roads are open though, but very muddy.

We had a wonderful visit by 5 men from Calvary Church in Missouri. Pastor Randy Sawyer brought four of his men to see the work here. We took them on Projeto IDE to Profeta on a Saturday. Projeto IDE (Ide means GO!) involves doctors, nurses, dentists, haircuts, hygiene, arts, crafts, culinary classes, sewing classes, distribution of clothes, children’s classes and, of course evangelism. We went by road since the river is so low. The village is right on the river and our building is a stone’s throw from the riverbank, but now we also have a road. We had 2 big thunderstorms that afternoon, so the return was “fun”. I won’t bore you with all the numbers, but one must be shared. There were 6 professions of faith, 2 at Treze de Maio and 4 at Profeta. We didn’t get back to town until after 1:00AM because of the poor condition of the road.

On Sunday we made a visit to our new work at Gama. We just sent our missionary couple Anísio and Matilde just last January. We had already started the work and already had a building up, but now that we have a missionary there full time the work has really taken off. The village is on tributary of the Juruá River in the state of Amazonas. There is now a road that cuts north through the jungle to this town of 170 families. They have services around town in homes on Tuesday nights. Thursday is teaching at church. Friday is prayer meeting and then 2 services on Sunday. They have more than 100 in attendance on Sunday night. The guys from Missouri got to try out a short dugout canoe “trip” on the beautiful stream in front of the village. Since then we have started the parsonage. We have the foundation in and Anísio is putting in the fill dirt right now.

We have also started a new church building at Serra do Moa. This work is in a small village 100 miles west of us at the base of a low range of mountains. The Moa River starts on this side of the Peruvian border and actually flows through a canyon flowing east until it flows into the Juruá River right here at Cruzeiro do Sul. This is my favorite river in the whole region. I started preaching at Serra do Moa when I was just 18 years old. We didn’t actually get a permanent congregation planted until the mid 90’s. Our missionaries there are Rivaldo and Leila. This is our third building. The second one is wooden and still in good shape, but they have grown and wanted to put in a new brick/ wood structure this time. We already have the foundation, slab and brick wall up to 2 feet.

I also made a visit to our congregation at São Domingos. This village is right next door to the Poyanawa Indian reservation (where we also have a work). The church at Assis Brasil has been taking care of the congregation at São Domingos. They have just finished new brick building, so I went to do the dedication. The building was packed to beyond capacity. There was one profession of faith.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.

In Christ,

Mike Creiglow

Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online


Read more
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